It's Christmas!
by ShooterH aka Shoe
Summary: This is what happens when Eggman is the mall Santa. Hilarious.


Christmas Adventure

It was December 22nd, and Christmas was in the air, man!  Dugan, Will, Nick, and I had all met at the mall to just have fun and find more things to put on our lists.  We checked out some of the electronics stores, you know, to find more stuff that we wanted.  After a while, Will got hungry and bought a Coke float with green ice cream.  Green.

"Man, I don't know _how_ you can stand drinking that," Nick complained, poking Will's Styrofoam cup.  Will shot an annoyed look at him.

"It's mint."

"Exactly!"  Nick threw his arms up.  "Who in their right mind would drink a Coke that's been tainted – _tainted_ – with green ice cream?  Coke floats are for vanilla _only_."

"It's mint."

I shoved Nick.  "Quit messing with him."

"No."  Nick sighed.  Then his eyes suddenly just kind of lit up, like he had spotted a brand new refrigerator or something.  He raised his arm and pointed dramatically.  "Looook."

It was the great big two-story carousel in the middle of the mall.  Dugan was opposed to it, but we finally convinced him enough to be able to pull him on by force.  A bell rang a few times, and we were off.  Our horses were going up and down quite smoothly, despite the bits of rust on the poles.  I pointed up to the ceiling of the carousel.

"I'm surprised that these don't just break off," I said, trying to shake the pole that my horse was attached to.  Nothing happened; not even rattling.

"You were saying?" said Dugan, bored.  "I think your horse just proved you wrong.  As always."

"Horses don't ever prove me wrong, stupid."

"This one just did."

"Shut up."

The ride was fun, even with Nick pretending he was the Duke the whole time.  We got off of the giant carousel and started to walk aimlessly.

"Hey, we could go visit Santa," Will suggested.

"Aren't we too old?" Dugan asked.

"I wouldn't think so," Will answered.  And so we made our way to the little stage covered with ferns and pine trees and fake snow with a bench and some guy posing as Santa to top it off.  We stood in line, pretending to be little kids.  I counted on my fingers, pretending that Dugan was Santa.  "I want an electric lead guitar, a recording studio with a CD burner, a desktop computer with a flat screen 40'' monitor–"

"That's a little much, Hillary."

"When else am I gonna get it?"

Dugan shrugged.  "Oh, look, it's our turn."

The two of us climbed up on the little shrouded stage and sat on each of Santa's knees.  Something felt familiar about this Santa dude.

"Ahem," he began, "What would you like for Christmas?"

I started my rehearsed list.  "I want an electric lead guitar, a recording studio with a CD burner, a desktop computer with a flat screen 40'' monitor–"

"Shut up, Hillary."  Dugan cut me off.  Santa came to attention, and then looked me really hard in the eye.  I noticed that he had dark glasses on instead of the classic clear ones.  Then he seemed to snap out of it and started the classic Santa laugh.

"Ho ho ho!"

Dugan and I looked at each other, then burst out at the same time:

"EVIL SANTA!"

"Huh?"  Santa got a puzzled look on his face.  I leaned over and whispered in his ear really quietly.

"Eggman?"

Santa leaned away from me and gave me a menacing look.  "Don't breathe a word," he said through clenched teeth.  Dugan was trying real hard not to start laughing.  The two of us stood up and stepped to the side to let Will and Nick have their turn.  They each took a seat on a knee.  I mouthed the word "Eggman" to them, not letting the eggman himself notice.

"So, uh, ho ho ho, what would you little boys like for Christmas?"

"I want a flamethrower," Nick said quickly.

Will pointed at Eggman's/Santa's fake white beard and slowly smiled.

"Biznitch!"

"What?"  Eggman looked at Will weirdly.  Nick was going into convulsions of laughter so hard that he fell over backwards off of Eggman's knee.  He hit the floor hard, but still laughing.  I snuck back over and whispered "Eggman!"

Eggman stood up suddenly, knocking Will to the floor, then ripped off his fake beard.  He picked up the bench he was sitting on and hurled it at Nick, where it hit him in the stomach right as he was standing up.  Eggman took off for the escalators about a hundred feet away with all four of us on his tail at top speed.

About halfway to the escalators, Nick suddenly veered off to the side.  He hopped on a fake reindeer and slapped its butt.

"RIDE!"

Absolutely nothing happened.  Nick slid off and started pushing it from behind.  It just scraped a few inches on the tiled floor of the mall.  Nick got desperate and shoved really hard.  The fake reindeer broke off of its stand with a short _crunch_, fell straight forward, and shattered its nose on the hard floor.  Nick instantly jerked back and looked around to see if he had been noticed.  Finally discovering that the reindeer was offering no assistance, Nick left the broken reindeer alone and scrambled to catch up to us.

We reached the escalators and stopped running.  The five of us calmly stepped onto the moving stairs, waiting patiently as we were elevated.

"Why aren't we running?" Will wondered aloud.

"It's not safe to run on an escalator, stupid," answered Dugan.

We continued to wait until we were at the top.  Then we resumed dashing through the mall, following Eggman all the way to the bathrooms, where he rushed in and slammed the door labeled 'women'.

"Dude, he just ran into the girls' room!" Dugan said in disbelief.  "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Follow him?" Will offered.  "I say that Hillary goes in."

"Why only me?"

"You're a girl," Will stated.

"Hey, it's not wrong to go in," Nick said.  "Eggman just waltzed right in there and he's a guy."

Nick was met with three stares.  Then we all went inside the girls' restroom like we owned the place.

Eggman was in the handicap stall in the back.  We rushed over and cornered him.  He climbed up on the toilet to get farther away.  The four of us stared at him.  He stared at us.

"_BELCH!!!_  Ahh..."

Will wiped his mouth, and then threw his empty Coke float in the trashcan behind him.  Eggman was so startled that he stumbled, lost his balance, and flushed the toilet with his butt.  A period of silence followed, letting the water finish its journey down the pipes.  We abruptly resumed the chase when Eggman darted out the door and into a sporting goods store.

There was a big display of nothing but slingshots right in the middle of the store.  Eggman led us in a sort of "here we go round the mulberry bush" thing for a few seconds, but then Dugan got some sense and grabbed a slingshot.  He stared at it for a second while the other three of us chased Eggman around the display.  No ammo.

Dugan made a quick choice and jumped on Eggman's back as he was circling around, hitting him on the head with the slingshot's handle.  Eggman ran right out of the store with Dugan on his back, setting off the security alarm.  Dugan got all embarrassed and threw the slingshot back into the store.

"Sorry!  Sorry!  I didn't mean to take it!  Bye!"

Will caught up to the two and ripped Dugan off of Eggman's back, sending them both collapsing to the floor laughing like idiots, while Eggman went careening ahead, slowing down and then finally stopping to sit on a bench to catch his breath.  Nick and I were still right outside the sporting goods store, laughing our heads off despite being exhausted.

We trudged over and sat down on the bench on either side of Eggman.  All of us were breathing hard.  No one made any move to restart the chase, so all five of us just sat there, wondering aloud why we did all that.

"Exercise?" Nick offered.

_Epilogue_

Will, Nick, Dugan, and I were sitting on a bench near the set so we could watch Eggman "be" Santa.  A mom handed her toddler to Eggman/Santa, who sat the kid on his left knee.  The camera in front of them flashed, startling the toddler.  He started to whimper.  Eggman patted him on the head, chuckling like the Santa he was supposed to be.  The mom took her kid away and paid for the photo.  Eggman got a slow disturbed look on his face, and then looked down at his soaking wet left knee.

END


End file.
